American Airlines: Poor Customer Service Experience

I am a platinum member and have had the most disturbing conversation with an AA supervisor by the name of *****, who I was transferred to from the Platinum Advantage desk. My travel reservation was confirmed on-line at aa.com and AA never forwarded my credit card information along to the One World Alliance partner, Jet Blue for my business travel tomorrow.

Jet Blue then canceled my reservation and AA "Platinum Advantage" desk agent and ***** the supervisor says, "Sorry, there's nothing I can do. It is not my problem."

How is that for Customer Service for Platinum Members? I am now booked on a competitor airline.
Keep up the great work, *****.

I am a platinum member and have had the most disturbing conversation with an AA supervisor by the name of *****, who I was transferred to from the Platinum Advantage desk. My travel reservation was confirmed on-line at aa.com and AA never forwarded my credit card information along to the One World Alliance partner, Jet Blue for my business travel tomorrow.

Jet Blue then canceled my reservation and AA "Platinum Advantage" desk agent and ***** the supervisor says, "Sorry, there's nothing I can do. It is not my problem."

How is that for Customer Service for Platinum Members? I am now booked on a competitor airline.
Keep up the great work, *****.

**This post was edited to remove personal identifying information**

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Hi Noreen, welcome to MP!

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience, sounds like it must have been frustrating. I'll admit though, your post doesn't have all that much information on what when wrong. From what it sounds like, you bought a ticket on AA.com that included flights with JetBlue and somehow your flight with JetBlue didn't get purchased? Is that correct?

Also, just to clarify some of the information in your post....

JetBlue is a partner with AA but is not a member of the oneworld alliance. You can earn RDM (redeemable miles) on AA coded JetBlue flights, but you cannot currently earn EQM (elite qualifying miles, which is what earns you status on AA) like you would on a oneworld alliance partner.

Also, sadly the "Platinum" number AA gives out for PLT status is actually just a number that puts you at the front of the line for the regular AA call center. The only AA status that actually gets it's own staffed desk is Executive Platinum.

Hopefully you are able to give a little bit more information so we can see what happened. I'm very curious to know how this all went down. A bit unnerving if booked reservations on AA.com aren't going through.....

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience, sounds like it must have been frustrating. I'll admit though, your post doesn't have all that much information on what when wrong. From what it sounds like, you bought a ticket on AA.com that included flights with JetBlue and somehow your flight with JetBlue didn't get purchased? Is that correct?

Also, just to clarify some of the information in your post....

JetBlue is a partner with AA but is not a member of the oneworld alliance. You can earn RDM (redeemable miles) on AA coded JetBlue flights, but you cannot currently earn EQM (elite qualifying miles, which is what earns you status on AA) like you would on a oneworld alliance partner.

Also, sadly the "Platinum" number AA gives out for PLT status is actually just a number that puts you at the front of the line for the regular AA call center. The only AA status that actually gets it's own staffed desk is Executive Platinum.

Hopefully you are able to give a little bit more information so we can see what happened. I'm very curious to know how this all went down. A bit unnerving if booked reservations on AA.com aren't going through.....

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Hi David,

Thank you for your message. I am a frequent business traveler and book my flights the same way on aa.com each time. (Until today, I typically do not use other airlines, if I can get a flight on AA.) In any event, I booked the flight on aa.com and it gave me options for Jet Blue. I purchased the reservation with my Amex Gold card and was sent a confirmation from AA.com. About 2 hours later, I received an automated call from AA.com saying that the reservation required additional information and to press #1 to speak to an Agent. I pressed #1 and spoke to a woman who said that she could not see that there was any additional information needed and the ticked (from what she could see on her computer screen) was confirmed. This occurred on 4/29.

On 5/03, I went to AA.com to check in for my flight and saw that the reservation had been canceled. I called AA.com and they said they did not know what happened, but there was nothing that they could do to help since the reservation was on Jet Blue. I explained that I made the reservation, and paid for it, on aa.com but they said it did not matter, I would have to call Jet Blue.

I then called Jet Blue and they said that they did in fact receive the reservation but AA never forwarded my payment information and therefore, the reservation was canceled.

I then called AA back and was told that again, they could not do anything. I asked to speak with a supervisor to see if I could get the original reservation confirmed and a person by the name of ***** got on the line. Unfortunately, I have had one other situation where AA canceled my confirmed reservation and ***** was the same Supervisor that I spoke with at that time. I could tell by his voice, as it is very distinct. He was as helpful this time as he was the last time --- and quite useless.

I explained the situation and asked if he could assist. He said, "NO". He did not offer assistance in any way, he did not care if I was a routine customer and quite frankly, he should not work in Customer Service, if your objective is to make customers feel appreciated.

To make a very long story short, I received an email last evening at 9pm EST saying, "Please contact AA regarding your upcoming reservation and referenced my record locator # ******* (the canceled flight). I called the 800-882-8880 number and Ms. ****** stated that she could get the original flight booked for me; however, the new price would be $563 versus the $281 for the reservation that AA canceled.

I had already re-booked my reservation with United/Continental Airlines and I had to pay $763. for the ticket due to American Airlines error.

I am very discouraged with AA. While I understand that mistakes happen, I was not offered assistance or receive any acknowledgement from AA of the mistake. (Jet Blue confirmed that the mistake was with the transfer of data from AA, so perhaps you can contact them.)

I am really surprised that this is how you treat your best customers. I have been invited to participate in a webcast this evening with the President of the AA Advantage line to discuss "customer satisfaction". I plan to participate in this call to provide input.

I am really surprised that this is how you treat your best customers. I have been invited to participate in a webcast this evening with the President of the AA Advantage line to discuss "customer satisfaction". I plan to participate in this call to provide input.

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It's great to get feedbak like this. Sounds like you had a very frustrating experience. I wonder why there was an issue between JetBlue and AA's system. The partnership is fairly new, so maybe some of the kinks haven't been worked out yet. What I'm curious about is why you chose to book the ticket with UA/CO instead of with JetBlue with the price difference?

Also, I'd like to clarify something since the portion of your response I quoted makes it seem like you've misunderstood what MilePoint is. I am not a respresentative of, nor do I work for, American Airlines. I am an AA customer and elite flyer, just like you. MilePoint is a travel forum for frequent flyers. We come together to talk about frequent flyer programs, promotions, service on different carriers, etc. The site occasionally hosts representatives of major travel companies to discuss their products and programs, which is why you received an invitation from AA to the website. AA sent the invitation out to all of its elite members. I just wanted to clarify since you used a lot of personal pronouns in your response that seem to indicate you are responding to me as a representative of AA.

Again, I hope that you take a look around the website (particularly the American Airlines forum linked to here) and see that there is a wealth of information and discussion going on. There's strength in numbers and you can certainly learn a lot, and hopefully contribute quite a bit, to what has developed here on MilePoint.

Thank you for your message. I am a frequent business traveler and book my flights the same way on aa.com each time. (Until today, I typically do not use other airlines, if I can get a flight on AA.) In any event, I booked the flight on aa.com and it gave me options for Jet Blue. I purchased the reservation with my Amex Gold card and was sent a confirmation from AA.com. About 2 hours later, I received an automated call from AA.com saying that the reservation required additional information and to press #1 to speak to an Agent. I pressed #1 and spoke to a woman who said that she could not see that there was any additional information needed and the ticked (from what she could see on her computer screen) was confirmed. This occurred on 4/29.

On 5/03, I went to AA.com to check in for my flight and saw that the reservation had been canceled. I called AA.com and they said they did not know what happened, but there was nothing that they could do to help since the reservation was on Jet Blue. I explained that I made the reservation, and paid for it, on aa.com but they said it did not matter, I would have to call Jet Blue.

I then called Jet Blue and they said that they did in fact receive the reservation but AA never forwarded my payment information and therefore, the reservation was canceled.

I then called AA back and was told that again, they could not do anything. I asked to speak with a supervisor to see if I could get the original reservation confirmed and a person by the name of ***** got on the line. Unfortunately, I have had one other situation where AA canceled my confirmed reservation and ***** was the same Supervisor that I spoke with at that time. I could tell by his voice, as it is very distinct. He was as helpful this time as he was the last time --- and quite useless.

I explained the situation and asked if he could assist. He said, "NO". He did not offer assistance in any way, he did not care if I was a routine customer and quite frankly, he should not work in Customer Service, if your objective is to make customers feel appreciated.

To make a very long story short, I received an email last evening at 9pm EST saying, "Please contact AA regarding your upcoming reservation and referenced my record locator # ******* (the canceled flight). I called the 800-882-8880 number and Ms. ****** stated that she could get the original flight booked for me; however, the new price would be $563 versus the $281 for the reservation that AA canceled.

I had already re-booked my reservation with United/Continental Airlines and I had to pay $763. for the ticket due to American Airlines error.

I am very discouraged with AA. While I understand that mistakes happen, I was not offered assistance or receive any acknowledgement from AA of the mistake. (Jet Blue confirmed that the mistake was with the transfer of data from AA, so perhaps you can contact them.)

I am really surprised that this is how you treat your best customers. I have been invited to participate in a webcast this evening with the President of the AA Advantage line to discuss "customer satisfaction". I plan to participate in this call to provide input.

**This post was edited to remove personal identifying information**

Click to expand...

David,

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you were an AA representative. The reason why I booked on UAL was that AA told me that they could not provide assistance. I cannot waste any more time with Customer Service people who are not willing to provide assistance and at this point, I am not confident that my confirmed online reservations won't be canceled in the future.

This is the 2nd time this has occurred with AA. Perhaps this is the way that AA makes their best customers pay higher prices for their tickets.

I'm a lowly AA Gold member and a pretty loyal one so far. I have another trip booked at the end of month (on AA metal). Having said that, I recently had a very poor experience with AA when it comes to partner flights. My purchase went through and my flight was on partner airline on Jetblue. The purchase process was seamless (you get a confirmation so I would be upset if I were you). I booked on an eligible fare in an eligible market and should qualify for my redeemable miles. Despite having booked on AA, my flight credit was not credited. (I was even advised to always include my AAdvantage number, which I did!)

I had to repeatedly request mileage credit. When I was advised to fax it in, their fax number was busy for the bulk of the time. It was amazingly frustrating to say the list. It is finally resolved today, but I have spent quite a bit of time waiting for the miles to post (they said it could take up to a month), then trying to contact AA, then having to look for my boarding pass as proof of documentation. It should have been a very straightforward process, and should have automatically posted.

Going forward, I'll just earn the partner rewards if I need to book a partner flight. Trying to get AA to credit my miles on a partner flight was just way too much of a hassle. I love flying AA and earning AA miles, but I don't think they have all the AA/Jetblue kinks worked out.

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